Theft by Finding - David Sedaris

The teacher threw a lot of chalk today, but none of it at me. We have a new student, a German au
pair, and I wonder what she must think, watching people get yelled at and hit with things. Our last
homework assignment was handed back, and though I’d technically made no mistakes, she still found
fault with it. I’d written, for example, “You will complain all the time, day and night.” Her comment
read, in angry red pen, “Pick one or the other. You don’t need both.”
September 15, 1998
Paris
The teacher was a kitten today. She picked on no one and for a brief while we all loosened up. Our
homework for Thursday is to finish reading a comic strip and identify the vulgar language.
September 17, 1998
Paris
We had two new students today, an Indonesian who loves to travel and a fifty-year-old American
named Janet who, when asked her profession, said, “Je suis a hairdresser.” She answered most of
today’s questions in English and while the teacher let her get away with it, tomorrow I imagine she’ll
be hit with both barrels. Today we moved into the tense you use when ordering someone around.
September 18, 1998
Paris
We had a substitute today, a casually dressed woman who did not give her name. She asked what
we’d been assigned for our homework, and just as we were telling her, the teacher walked in and
apologized for being late. She said something to the substitute like “You can go now,” but the woman
had no intention of leaving, so the two of them went at it.
“You were late,” the substitute said. “The rule is that after fifteen minutes, someone else takes the
class.”
Our teacher said she had the lesson all planned, and the substitute interrupted her and said, “Time
is time.”
They went back and forth until eventually our teacher surrendered and stormed out of the room,
telling us to have a nice weekend. It was fun watching her fight with someone who could defend
herself.
Our lesson had to do with the imperative, the tense you use when making demands. To illustrate it,
the substitute made me her slave and insisted that I kiss everyone in the room except her.
Later we were told to come up with a list of commands for students learning French—you must do
your homework, you must not daydream, etc. I raised my hand. “You must dodge the morsels of chalk
thrown by the teacher.”
The substitute seemed confused. “But no, the teacher does not throw chalk.”